


Golden Years

by GhostOfDorothyStreet



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, adorable old villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 05:03:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12204414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostOfDorothyStreet/pseuds/GhostOfDorothyStreet
Summary: An early spring morning, over half a century from now...





	Golden Years

“Brace yourself, this part is uneven.”

“Ugh. Remind me to have  _words_  with the groundsman.”

“Will do, dear.”

The air was cold and crisp, the tufts of grass at the sides of the footpath still white with frost and wisps of morning mist lingering in hollows. Oswald shifted slightly in his seat as Ed maneuvered his wheelchair over a rough patch on the path, drawing his blanket tighter around him.

“You alright?” asked Ed, voice laced with concern.

Oswald patted his husband’s gloved hand where it gripped the chair’s handle.

“Just a little chilly, my love, be right as rain when the sun comes up"

Ed didn’t look entirely convinced, but he shrugged his shoulders, and leaned down to kiss the top of Oswald’s head, ignoring the way his back twinged with the movement.

Strictly speaking, Oswald didn’t need the wheelchair all of the time. Despite the way that time had worsened the damage to his leg, he could still get around the home with his cane on good days, albeit a bit unsteadily. But out in the cold and on less even ground it was by far the safer option. Besides, in truth Ed rather liked wheeling him around, leaning on the back of the chair to support himself as though it were a zimmer frame when the pair went on their walks around the grounds. Or, on occasions such as this one, down to the riverbank. 

 Behind them, the golden stonework of the Martha Wayne Memorial Home seemed to shine in the morning sunlight. Founded a decade earlier, the elegant manor house served as a residential home for former Arkham inmates (particularly members of a certain former vigilante’s old rogues gallery), deemed unfit to rejoin ‘normal’ society but deserving of more dignity in their sunset years than the asylum could provide.

New young nurses, too young to remember Gotham’s early days as the costumed criminal capital of America, often had trouble believing that a pair of sweet old gentlemen like Mr Nygma and Mr Cobblepot could possibly have once been notorious criminals. They weren’t creepy like Mr Valeska and Mr Tetch, or surly and unpredictable like Mr Dent…

But then of course there were all the times Ed staged heists on the office safe, forcing them to up security every few months and provide him with a new challenge. Or Oswald taking over the in house black market, dealing in booze, cigarettes and other miscellaneous contraband. 

It was important to stay busy at their age.

Down at the bank, safely back from the edge, was a wrought iron bench, which Ed sat down upon with a sigh and a creaking of bones, having parked Oswald’s chair next to it. His lanky frame was somewhat stooped these days, his once thick dark hair now white and receding, but there was still a clever, boyish sparkle in those wide brown eyes. 

“It always amazes me how clean the water is now. I always remember it being so murky and contaminated,” he turned to Oswald with a smile, “Funny how things change.” 

 Oswald reached out and took Ed’s hand, holding it with their fingers interlaced. 

“It makes sense though, really. You stop pouring toxins into something and time eventually clears it away,“ he squeezed Ed’s hand, “Not that I don’t have some fond memories of that dirty old river.” 

 Memories not of plunging into it’s depths, but of coming out alive on the other side. Of tearful embraces and reconciliation. Of watching Ed get down on one knee with the sound of gulls and boat horns in the background, and of collapsing down onto his own knees to be at the right height to fling his arms around him. 

 “Fifty years…” he looked down at Ed’s other hand, at the telltale bump under the glove caused by his wedding ring “Tradition dictates I’ll have to find you something gold.” 

 Ed chucked and leaned over towards Oswald, curling his hand around the end of his purple scarf and pulling him in for a kiss. 

“I think we’ve already given each other the only thing that really matters” he said, raising a finger and tracing a heart shape in the air “I cannot be bought, I cannot be sold, even if I am sometimes made of gold…" 

 Oswald laughed fondly and pressed a kiss to Ed’s cheek. He’d long since accepted that in marrying Ed he’d married the never ending stream of riddles. 

"Happy anniversary, Ed.”

**Author's Note:**

> I realised recently that I never actually got around to posting my ficlets from March's round of Nygmobblepot Week, so here's "Day One- Future Riddler/Penguin".  
> Can be taken as being in the same verse as Love, Blood and Rhetoric (with the obvious exception of Rivers of Gotham)


End file.
